Spend it like Beckom

He's found a way to give back: helping guys like him

Untitled Document
A white cloud envelops Larry Beckom as he sits
shirtless, his head bowed, in the sauna of a Springfield fitness club. It’s 7:30 a.m. on a Monday. One of the few quiet
moments of his day, he says, are the 10 minutes or so he spends in the
steam room. He devotes the time to peaceful reflection and meditation.“God, thank you for waking me up this morning.
I pray that you put smart people around me, and strong people, who are
spiritually strong,” he prays. Beckom, who stands 6 feet tall and weighs 225 pounds,
has just finished his workout routine, which started at 6 a.m. and includes
four sets of bench presses, another few sets on two different abdominal
machines, and five laps around the indoor track. He’s hardly winded, but his day is only
starting. The rest of Monday will be devoted to taking troubled
men to counseling and helping them look for jobs, visiting friends in the
hospital, washing cars, and doling out cash. After he gets home, Beckom
will stay up late, studying. Beckom and his wife, Kathy Blankenship-Beckom, run
the Nu-Focus Foundation, a faith-based not-for-profit organization that
owns three transitional homes for men down on their luck. As long as the
guys stay out of trouble, attend counseling sessions, and get a job or go
to school, they can stay as long as they need to. A former drug user, drug dealer, and convict, Beckom
makes sure that his days are hectic. He believes that if he and the
Nu-Focus clients keep busy, there’ll be no time left for foolishness.
However, his desire to help people avoid the mistakes
that he made, along with his distaste for seeking other people’s
approval, has earned Beckom a reputation as a troublemaker. Last fall, complaints about Nu-Focus’ providing
shelter to sex offenders in Springfield’s Vinegar Hill neighborhood
led to the adoption of a new city ordinance prohibiting sex offenders from
living with 1,000 feet of each another. The controversy forced Beckom to make changes.
He’s started attending neighborhood association meetings regularly,
volunteers Nu-Focus participants for community-service projects, and is
trying to forge better relationships with key local leaders. He says that the incident made him more aware that
Springfield is a political beast and prompted him to learn to play the
game. He has started attending City Council meetings and sometimes
addresses the aldermen during the public-comment portion of the meeting. “I first started going because when that whole
incident happened they were trying to say that my primary goal was to bring
sex offenders into the community,” he says. “Although I work with very few sex offenders,
I’ll work with anybody, including a sex offender. I don’t care
if you committed murder, as long as you want to change your
life.”To understand what drives Beckom, you have to realize
that he has a lot of ground to make up. Now 47, he spent much of his adult life in trouble
with the law. He served prison sentences at two central-Illinois
penitentiaries, both times on drug charges. In 1998 and 1999 he served 14
months in the Taylorville Correctional Center, and in August 2000 he was
sentenced to serve time at the Jacksonville Correctional Center, where he
stayed until March 2001, when he was released. Beckom, whose father made good money working in a
steel mill, says that his family lived a typical middle-class existence on
Chicago’s West Side.“When we moved to our block, it was all white
people in the community. A doctor owned the house we lived in, and we
always went on vacations every year. “But my dad was very strict. As soon as the
streetlights came on, we needed to be in the house. My friends could stay
out late; I couldn’t. They could sleep all day on the weekend; I
couldn’t.”Eventually he began ignoring his father’s
teachings. “There was a part of me that was attracted to
badness,” he recalls. “By the time I was 18 years old, I had my
first $100,000 and a taste of the streets. “So if you got a lot of dough, a lot of money,
a lot of drugs, you got a lot of power — but a lot of money and a lot
of power in the hands of a fool that’s a teenager is
dangerous.”In Sangamon County, where Beckom moved after getting
out of prison in 2001, his rap sheet includes offenses as minor as speeding
and operating an uninsured motor vehicle. He’s also been arrested for
disorderly conduct and domestic battery.According to court records, Kathy filed for an order
of protection in 2004 but didn’t show up to court, so the order was
vacated. Both decline to discuss the matter in detail, except to say that
their relationship is fine. His being sent to prison the second time, Beckom says,
was God’s way of getting his attention.“In the program, they call it hitting rock
bottom. I wound up in a place called segregation — that’s a
jail within a jail. Then I started reading a lot of books, studied the
Bible. I realized the only place I could turn to was God.” While in prison, Beckom was alarmed by the growing
number of young people serving time, mostly for drug offenses. “We’re warehousing a lot of drug addicts
in prisons,” he says. “Some of the guys I work with, when they
get out, they go to church, they try to do the right thing — but it
could be discouraging for a man with family, and the only place you can
work is McDonald’s. You can bench-press 415 pounds, but they tell you
you’re not qualified to be a laborer on a construction
site.”In 2002, the Beckoms incorporated the Nu-Focus
Foundation. Larry came up with the name and does much of the
legwork. Kathy, who designed the program, manages the foundation’s
day-to-day operations, including the finances. “We had done some work with churches, and we
decided to do something on our own, something that hasn’t really been
done before,” she says. In September 2006 the couple bought Nu-Focus’
first transitional home, on West Lawrence Avenue.The organization’s mission, according to its
literature, is “to provide a living environment that will enhance our
residents’ lives as we seek to raise their moral, social and
spiritual conscienceness [sic]. We strive to act as a liaison between the
problem and fulfillment of self image. It is our quest to meet their needs
as we educate self-destructive behavior and refine their
lifestyle.”The statement continues: “We offer a safe
housing as you begin your battle against addiction where you will receive
support and encouragement from your peers. Our Nu-Focus team consists of
qualified staff and volunteers who have lived through many of the same
situations that you are about to encounter. We give the newcomer a built-in
support network with a sense of fellowship and belonging.”Nu-Focus receives funds from the Illinois Department
of Corrections when it takes in former inmates. Some of the men’s
families also help out. Still other men come to Nu-Focus with nothing, but
the Beckoms take care of them, too. According to the IDOC contract — which is
effective through June 2008 — IDOC pays the foundation $30 per day
per ex-offender and $45 per day for a sex offender. Kathy’s name is the only one on the IDOC
contract. Though agency spokesman Derek Schnapp says that IDOC is aware of
Larry’s criminal history, there’s nothing in the contract that
prohibits his involvement with the program. To date, IDOC has paid $24,645 to Nu-Focus for
the 2006 and 2007 fiscal years; Schnapp says that IDOC is cutting back
statewide on the amount of money that goes to transitional-housing programs
such as Nu-Focus. To make ends meet, then, Beckom washes cars —
many, many cars. He estimates that his mobile detailing service, New
Innovations, has close to 350 clients. “My wife says, ‘We need this much money
to pay the bills.’ I hit the streets,” Beckom says. “I
don’t have a transportation budget. I don’t get paid, [site
manager] Al Oregon doesn’t get paid, Kathy doesn’t get
paid.”Beckom often details cars for free or at a discounted
rate, offering car washes like most people offer beverages to houseguests,
enlisting the guys from Nu-Focus, who receive $8 per hour or work to pay
back debts. If Beckom fronts the cash for a couple of rounds of golf, for
example, the next day the recipient will help him wash cars. Nu-Focus is looking to hire a grant writer to get
some more money, and Beckom would like to have more support of Illinois
social-service agencies, the local social-service community, and
Springfield’s political establishment. He grows impatient navigating bureaucracies, however.
“When I was trying to get my first house
— you know, it was a crack house — I hit the streets and
started washing cars,” he says. “I ain’t got time for all that red
tape and butt-kissing and waiting on people, and people are sometimes in a
crisis.” Much as a drill sergeant would, Beckom inspects the
houses daily. For the most part, the inside of a Nu-Focus house is
immaculate. A self-proclaimed neat freak, Beckom wouldn’t
have it any other way. All of the beds are made. Noticing that one of the
guys has left a video-game controller on his bedroom floor, Beckom makes a
mental note to have a talk with the young man later.The bookshelves are lined with such titles as Allen
Ginsberg’s Kaddish and Other Poems; books published by Alcoholics Anonymous, including Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions; and the Bible. The refrigerators are fully stocked with sundries,
which all house members share. “None of that ‘This is my
bologna’ stuff,” Beckom says. The Beckoms own four houses. Their personal residence
is on the city’s east side. The other three homes — at 618 and
620 W. Lawrence Ave. and one around the corner at 1011 S. College St.
— house 13 Nu-Focus clients. Beckom conducts several surprise visits each day,
sometimes in the middle of the night. IDOCofficials also have keys to the
properties. Men who live here come from myriad backgrounds. Among the clients are Ryan, a lanky teenager with
blond hair who likes to play golf, and Jason, a 32-year-old man who must
register as a sex offender with the state and lives in another Nu-Focus
house.Ted, an older house member who is finishing up a
master’s degree, explains: “The house is a lot like what
you’d find in recovery: You’ll have the bank robber sitting
next to the bank president, but everybody’s working toward a common
goal.”After being evicted from his apartment last fall, Ted
wound up in the psychiatric ward at St. John’s Hospital. “Larry and Kathy picked me up from the psych
unit at St. John’s and brought me here, you know, with a nickel in my
pocket,” he says. Nu-Focus receives referrals from IDOC, from
organizations such as the Gateway Foundation (a Chicago-based program for
the treatment of drug and alcohol abuse that runs a facility in Springfield
on Lake Victoria Road), and by word of mouth.There are no rigid admission requirements, Beckom
says, besides being a man (no women are admitted) and having a desire to
turn your life around. Once in the program, a resident is required to find a
job. House meetings are scheduled for Mondays and Fridays but are held
whenever they’re needed. There’s also Bible study on Wednesday
and Thursday, and the guys are encouraged to go to church on Sunday,
regardless of religion.A basketball hoop sits behind one of the homes on
West Lawrence, and Larry takes guys in small groups to the gym. “We just try to keep the guys busy, give them an
opportunity they didn’t have, and get them back into the social realm
of life,” says site manager Oregon.Beckom puts it another way: “If you ain’t
workin’ on recovery, you workin’ on relapse.”If a resident does mess up, he has no choice but to
leave the program. It happened just last week, as a matter of fact: Larry
and several members of one house were forced to pack up the belongings of a
housemate who had relapsed. Evicting people is difficult, Beckom says, because he
considers Nu-Focus clients members of his family. “They don’t know,” he says,
“when I help them, I help me. That’s why I’m not in the
penitentiary. “I don’t want to see them getting shot up
like I did — burned, and stabbed, had to have my head stapled back
together, getting hit in the head with guns and baseball bats, and all that
mess.”Before Springfield passed its ordinance forbidding
the practice, IDOC permitted Nu-Focus to have one sex offender living in
each house, which didn’t sit well with neighbors. During a tense meeting of the Vinegar Hill
Neighborhood Association meeting last fall, Beckom clashed with residents.
At the time, neighbors were suspicious of Beckom, accusing him and Kathy of
getting rich off their contract with IDOC. Beckom says he wants to set the record straight:
“We had all that stuff before we started.” “Me and Kathy would have more money if
she would go to her profession, which she’s be doing for 20
years,” he says. “She could make a hell of a lot more money if
she could just work eight hours, and get benefits and a check, than what we
do now.”Kathy has a bachelor’s degree in child, family,
and community service from Sangamon State University, now the University of
Illinois at Springfield. “Probably, but we would not be nearly as
blessed. We’re just giving back,” Kathy says. On any given day, Beckom says, he gives away close to
$100 in cash and services. Although he sometimes does this out of
generosity, it’s also his way of earning brownie points with people
from whom he wants favors. To the dismay of the two young men doing all the
work, Beckom charges a woman half-price on what is ordinarily a $185
detailing job on her silver SUV. Outside his home, Beckom offers a free car wash to a
local marketing executive, hoping that the guy can score Beckom a few
Cardinals baseball tickets. Three days a week he assists John Luther Howell, coach
of the Springfield Housing Authority-sponsored youth boxing team, the
Springfield Cobras. In addition to helping Howell purchase equipment and
scrape together cash to send the young boxers to competitions, he also
provides small cash incentives to the younger boxers, who are required to
do 100 sit-ups and 100 push-ups per day, to discipline themselves. The boxer who can do the most push-ups wins two
bucks. Beckom promises another young man $25 if he demonstrates in one week
that he can do 25 push-ups correctly. On Tuesday, the boy took home the
money. Howell is grateful to Beckom: “He hasn’t
been here long, but when he showed up he made a big splash.”A framed “letter of recommendation” from
state Rep. Raymond Poe, praising the efforts of Nu-Focus, hangs in the
Beckoms’ home office, and Beckom seems to have improved his
relationship with the Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association and the larger
community. The West Lawrence homes no longer have any sex
offenders living there, although Beckom won’t speculate about whether
that’s the reason for the improved relations. He also attends neighborhood meetings and routinely
volunteers Nu-Focus for various community-improvement projects. Late last
year, after the dust-up with area residents, one of Vinegar Hill’s
signs was vandalized, and some residents found the timing suspicious.
Beckom paid for a new sign. “He’s very helpful,” says Vinegar
Hill Neighborhood Association president Mario Ingoglia. “He’s a
positive person. He seems like he’s really trying to help by
mentoring these kids.” Ward 6 Ald. Mark Mahoney’s sex-offender
ordinance, Ingoglia says, seems to have given people in the neighborhood
peace of mind. Eric Hansen, pastor of the iWorship Center, where the
Beckoms show up each Sunday with a van full of Nu-Focus residents,
describes Kathy and Larry as good people with good hearts. “They love the people who can’t help
themselves, the people who Jesus hung out with,” Hansen says. Larry says he knows better than anybody that
it’s not up to him to judge people. “God got that spot on lock. He holds that
position,” he says. “He just told me to love people and, for people
who say they want to do the right thing, put them in a position to thrive.
“Now, if they’re not doing the right
thing, you know what I do, I’ll put you out — but if
you’re on something for real, I’ll try to help you. I
don’t care who you are — black, white, Hispanic — I work
with them all. Criminals, noncriminals, I don’t care.” He considers himself a work in progress. “God is still working on me,” he says.
“I got issues, I’m not a saint, but God knows I love people,
and I love helping people, and I think by helping people that’s what
keeps me out of trouble.” Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.